By Stephanie Kemp

Helping those in need

Gerringong Rotary Club continues to support the work undertaken worldwide by ShelterBox, who work with disaster-affected communities to provide the emergency shelter, essential items and training needed to support families in the long process of rebuilding their lives.

This year marks ShelterBox’s 25th year since being founded.

Since inception, with the assistance of Rotary, ShelterBox have supported over 3 million people recovering from disaster or conflict. Rotary's partnership with ShelterBox continues to make a significant impact across the globe including supporting families in Lebanon and Gaza (through collaboration with Rotary in Jordan), those who lost their homes after Hurricane Beryl swept through the Caribbean, and those families displaced through drought in Ethiopia.

Later in the year we are planning a big travel raffle – watch this space!

We have also been able to help those affected by the recent Queensland floods.

The April Markets, held on Easter Saturday, were a great success. We had the best BBQ results for a while and were able to make a donation to the flood relief efforts.

Volunteers needed

In order to keep making a difference by helping charities like these as well as running local initiatives like the monthly Gerringong Markets and helping to found Active Aging NSW, which is bringing new dementia programs to the South Coast, we need new volunteers.

While our focus is on our charity work, we are a social bunch – Wednesday morning meetings in Gerringong Town Hall have a visiting speaker, once a month we all go out to dinner and we have sporadic social activities, such as our visit to the Jervis Bay Botanical Garden and our morning tea at Tilda and Cacao chocolate makers in Gerringong. Later in this year a group from the club is planning a few days away.

A Focus on travel

Peta Godfrey, owner of Travel Focus in Gerringong spoke at one of our recent meetings about her journey as a travel agent through the COVID period and what has changed between before and after the pandemic.

Peta grew up locally and joined Guidepost Travel, the predecessor to Travel Focus. She bought the business in 2017 and in 2020 she was suddenly facing closing borders and clients stuck overseas, with no idea how long the situation was going to last.

Thanks to JobKeeper, she could retain some of her staff, but the business was making no money so she had to close the office and surrender her lease, while working from home to get clients back to Australia and cancelling and rebooking holidays, rebooking and rescheduling up to three times to prevent the client losing their money altogether.

By the time borders reopened in 2023, staff had got other jobs, as had Peta herself! Airline staff were untrained, pilots had left the industry and there was a shortage of planes as it took six months to get them back in the air again after being parked in the desert.

Flight prices had gone up threefold and Peta was wondering whether to reopen the business at all in the face of these challenges as she was enjoying her new low stress life.

What made the decision for her was locals stopping her in the street and asking when she was going to reopen so they could book a trip.

Peta talks to the Club.

The people reignited her passion for the industry, and she has found that business now is even better than it was before the pandemic.

Travel has become more complicated with new visa requirements everywhere and clients now appreciate the service they receive from a specialist travel agent and how much time they save compared to doing all the bookings themselves.

The service has become much more consultative and for the agent, the satisfaction comes from hearing clients’ stories about what a great trip they had.

The joy of learning to appreciate fine chocolate

A wet Wednesday morning saw 16 or so Rotarians assembling at Tilda and Cacao in Gerringong for a talk on the origin of the business and how chocolate is made and how artisan chocolate differs from the mass produced (think fine wine as compared to the cask!).

Tilda and Cacao buy from small sustainable producers and, like wine, the terroir influences the flavour of the chocolate. They also process the cacao without roasting so that all the natural flavours are revealed.

The big factories buy their cacao from numerous producers and roast it and add flavourings like vanilla to ensure they always produce a standard product, but the artisan chocolatier relishes the regional differences in flavour.

Sarah from Tilda & Cacao.

They have also focused on local ingredients, such as Davidson plum, to flavour their chocolate and create something unique.

As well as learning about the grinding and tempering processes, we were able to try the product (delicious!) and enjoyed a chocolate inspired morning tea.

New members and friends always welcome - see www.gerringongrotary.com.au or contact [email protected].

Erik from Tilda & Cacao.